For a long time, Kisumu residents have been expressing their misgivings about the activities of some of the police officers in the town. Of particular concern has been the fear that most of the robberies in the town are committed by police officers.
Two days ago, two residents, one of them a police officer, were robbed of cash after withdrawing it from the bank by people who are suspected to be criminal investigation department officers.
On Saturday, a police officer from the Administration Police department was among three people shot dead in a botched robbery attempt at Manyatta estate in Kisumu. The three had robbed a member of public 400,000 shillings a few minutes earlier.
On September 12, 2013, thugs suspected to have been police officers strangled a Norwegian missionary in Kisumu. The thugs were suspected to have been administration police officers. With such cases on the rise in Kisumu, one wonders why the authorities have not acted accordingly to arrest the perpetrators. Police lethargy cannot be attributed to lack of information because citizens have volunteered it, but it would seem those concerned did not see the necessity for action. The police are known to ask for information that may lead to the arrest of criminal elements but once this information is provided, they fail to act on it.
Such failure smacks of complicity by senior officers in criminal networks ran by unscrupulous officers. There is the possibility that some senior police officers could be aware of these criminal elements in the police service but opt to keep silent, perhaps as beneficiaries. Last week, many businessmen in the lake side town of Kisumu spoke to journalists and threatened to relocate their businesses citing insecurity and unnecessary demonstrations by locals.
That the police who are charged with safeguarding citizens should turn their training and guns against them calls for the personal intervention of the Inspector General of police in seeking a permanent solution to the malignant problem. A temporary solution will be to transfer all officers in Kisumu town, for they have failed to deliver.
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